Feel better – Sound better

Making music on a guitar is a profound experience that is greater than just strumming strings. The way the guitar makes you feel, both emotionally and physically, will make a huge difference in what comes out of it. When you pick it up, does it come with no or little effort? When you strum a chord, does it resonate so you feel it in your hands and gut? After you have played it for as long as you need to, are you still relaxed? At Strandberg Guitars, we think that answering yes to these questions will make you sound better…

One of the most important aspects of an ergonomic guitar is that it is lightweight, and rests easily on your shoulder when you play it standing up. Unless it balances well, the neck will want to dive against the floor, and it is impossible to play it relaxed. The first step to solving this is to remove the weight of the tuning machines at the headstock. A headless guitar will by definition have less weight at the end of the neck, and it is possible to make a light body and still maintain balance. We created our own hardware out of aircraft grade aluminum to maximize the potential.

An extended range guitar, or ERG, simply has a greater range of playable tones than a conventional guitar. Most often, this means extra strings: 7-string and 8-string guitars are becoming mainstream, but more and more people starting to play 9-string guitars. To successfully create an extended range guitar that sounds great and plays well, one needs to think of it as a new instrument, with a different range of frequencies that need to resonate through the guitar, and that need to be picked up by the electronics. We chamber our bodies and laminate our necks with carbon fiber in a process we developed ourselves and work with the best pickup manufacturers to maximize the potential.

As already stated, one must think of an extended range guitar as a different instrument than a conventional guitar. Generally speaking, a heavier gauge string has a better tone and intonation the longer it is. A string at higher tension sounds better than a loosely tensioned one. But at the same time, one wants to be able to bend notes and play with ease. The solution is to create a guitar with different scale lengths for each string. The term “fanned fret” is a trademark by inventor Ralph Novak, that refers to the fact that the frets are laid out in a fanned shape to support the different scale lengths. In addition to better tone, we improve the ergonomics and playability by an optimized fanning of the frets.

True Temperament is a revolutionary new approach to the guitar’s fretboard, delivering an accuracy of fret scaling like never before. True innovation combined with a dramatic new fretting technique make it possible to implement any temperament on the guitar while preserving full playability. The True Temperament fretting system is THE solution for guitarist seeking as close to perfect as possible guitar intonation.